This is the last part of my 5 part series on Joomla web design. Now that you know the ins and outs of designing websites with Joomla, and hopefully you've had some practice using it, you may be contemplating the decision to make Joomla an integral part of your business. When you decide to hire HATHWAY, you get a Joomla web design firm that has successfully completed over 200 Joomla web design projects.

With the ever increasing concerns with environmental and green issues, many companies are trying to find ways to do their part in decreasing their carbon footprint.  As a web development company, we have taken it upon ourselves to find ways to contribute to the environmental effort, without sacrificing the quality that our clients demand.

Here in Part 4 of my series on learning Joomla, I'm going to give you some tips and pointers on building your first Joomla site. This isn't step-by-step instructions, for that I highly recommend you get a book on Joomla, like Joomla 1.5 - A User's Guide. What I'm here for is to help you to not feel too daunted by the sometimes complicated instructions. I promise, you will get the hang of it sooner than you think. And once you've got it down, you'll never look back.

This is part 3 of my series on learning Joomla. Here we're going to focus on getting aquainted with the basic features, layout, and structure of Joomla. If you've already installed Joomla, you're ready to go.

The Joomla Community Builder (CB) plugin for Interspire Email Marketing (IEM) is an amazing piece of software.  Interspire Email Marketer creates, sends, and tracks large email marketing campaigns and autoresponders. And this Joomla plugin allows people to build lists in IEM while building a Joomla community.

This is Part 2 of my series on learning Joomla. In this post I'm going to get you started in the wonderful world of Joomla. But instead of just jumping in headfirst, we're going to take more of a leisurely stroll into the waters.

Online communication has never been more important nor has it ever been easier to do.  Whether it is for a business professional or just a one of the millions participating on social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, having a solid communication platform is essential for voicing our opinions.  

Do you manage a business directory? Do you need people to be able to find your stores?

The new Joomla Store Locator extension uses the power of Google Maps to allow visitors to seek and view specific store locations via Google Maps.  The Store Locator extension grants visitors the ability to identify an unlimited amount of store locations in Joomla’s administration back-end.  With this Joomla Store Locator component, one can specify stores, businesses, wineries, etc. The sky is the limit!

My name's Andrea, and I've been designing websites for just about nine years, starting way back in the day of Geocities and Angelfire. About a month ago, I was introduced to Joomla. When I first heard of Joomla, a former client was telling me about how amazing it was. He didn't know what it was exactly, but he knew it was amazing. When I looked it up myself, I have to admit I was completely lost, and at first, totally uninterested. I already had my way of designing websites and it worked. Yeah, I used tables for my layouts, and the biggest site map I could boast had about fifteen pages, but Joomla looked like a complicated program that would take months to learn.

Every developer and marketer knows the importance of social bookmarking to drive traffic to a website. Abivia created a new Social Bookmarking plug-in for Joomla that seems to be a cut above the rest which gives control and versatility back to its users.  With a flexible back-end and overall quality, it’s no wonder that Abivia’s Social Bookmarking plug-in is getting its much deserved praise within the Joomla! community.

The new Joomla Hotel Guide extension is a great step forward to the existing travel agency components.  By having the ability to list and manage hotels with the Hotel Guide component is a “no brain-er.” If your looking to build a hotel review site, create a directory, or promote tourism within your town or city, this is a great option for you. The Hotel Guide extension is loaded with many advantageous features that are sure to benefit its end user.

Recently, we had a new client come to us with a peculiar issue occurring within their Joomla based web site. What was happening was, each time this client published a set of articles to their site, their CPU spike to 100% causing the web site to crash. Knowing that this is a particularly large web site with a high volume of traffic and thousands of content articles, it was assumed that there was a problem with their server. They brought on a number of consultants who tried many valid solutions but to no avail. Understanding the urgency of this matter, we deployed our most experienced partner, Tom Eagan on the project, in order to get to the bottom of it.

Last week the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce won second place in an annual contest that judges Chamber of Commerce websites. WACE, the Western Association of Chamber Executives, ranked the SLO Chamber based on the interconnectivity of three websites, Slochamber.org, Visitslo.com, and Slo-business.com. Things brings great pride to our hearts, not only because our local chamber is winning awards, but of course because we built Slo-business.com!

Unlike most CRM systems, I commend SugarCRM for offering an Open Source free version of their software. In the spirit of Open Source, SugarCRM has released its Community version of its software which allows businesses to utilize a scaled-down version of their software for free. With our economic climate in such a difficult state, small and large businesses alike need to find ways to cut cost without sacrificing efficient practices. Enter Open Source. Open Source software technically means that the source code is available to the public, but generally it also means that you can implement it for little or no cost.

While browsing around Joomla.org the other day, I came across one of the most interesting blog posts I have seen lately. In this post, the author Ankit Ahuja speaks about his Summer of Code project in which he fine-tunes a feature that will have both Joomla! developers and clients alike scrambling for the Extensions Directory when it comes out. Front-end editing has finally arrived for the Joomla! CMS.

With the verdict on selling goods and services on Facebook still out, many brands and individuals have jumped on board the f-commerce train without looking back. F-commerce or selling on Facebook makes sense, with over 700 million users hanging out on the platform, might as well bring commerce to them.  The good news, if you want to sell your goods on Facebook it’s easy. Enter Pavyment.